Monday, March 17, 2008
Gender Trouble
The Sunday NYT Magazine published an article about a problem on women's college campuses--young women are entering as females and transition to become male uring their college years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16students-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=alissa+quart&st=nyt&oref=slogin
There are people who are born intersexed, and still others who are hormonely the other. I fully support trans-issues and people. I understand the safety of trans people need and have at a Women's College. But that does not mean I think that there still needs to be a greater interogation of the trend of why so many girls who want to be or will be boyz.
Part of this I place at the feet of Queer Theory and its patron saint Michel Foucault. Queer Theory still preferences the male patriarchy without analysis.
Our society as a whole still preferences males--witness, for instance, the democratic primary and the misogyny that is whipped up and used by the media to belittle Senator clinton. Or, open almost any high school or college history text and read who is in the main text and who gets literally marginalized in the boxes. Or, the fact that 45 years since the Equal Pay Act of 1963 women are still, at best, earning 79 cents to the male dollar. Women are still objectified. The so called gender neutral default is still male ( Joan Tronto and I wrote about this over 10 years ago--see http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/TruthMyersTronto.pdf ).
. . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16students-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=alissa+quart&st=nyt&oref=slogin
There are people who are born intersexed, and still others who are hormonely the other. I fully support trans-issues and people. I understand the safety of trans people need and have at a Women's College. But that does not mean I think that there still needs to be a greater interogation of the trend of why so many girls who want to be or will be boyz.
Part of this I place at the feet of Queer Theory and its patron saint Michel Foucault. Queer Theory still preferences the male patriarchy without analysis.
Our society as a whole still preferences males--witness, for instance, the democratic primary and the misogyny that is whipped up and used by the media to belittle Senator clinton. Or, open almost any high school or college history text and read who is in the main text and who gets literally marginalized in the boxes. Or, the fact that 45 years since the Equal Pay Act of 1963 women are still, at best, earning 79 cents to the male dollar. Women are still objectified. The so called gender neutral default is still male ( Joan Tronto and I wrote about this over 10 years ago--see http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/TruthMyersTronto.pdf ).
. . .
Labels: misogyny, patriarchy, trans issues
